An update to the Google Phone app came out a few days ago, but left many people wondering what the changes were. This version doesn't have a whole lot to show off, but a close examination does reveal a couple of interesting things both active and hidden inside the apk. Users now have the option to easily share voicemails as regular files, meaning you can email them to friends or easily stash them in cloud storage. From the perspective of a teardown, Google has also added the first signs of RCS support, meaning we can look forward to some new calling features to come along in the future.

What's New

Unofficial Changelog: (the stuff we found)

Voicemails can be shared

Fix: Changed the icon color of the 'new contact' app shortcut

Sharing voicemails

I find it very rare that I have to send voicemails to another person, or even back them up for the future. However, when the situations come up, I don't want to screw around with trying different methods or tricks, nor do I want to open up web interfaces to get it done. Google just made this one of the easiest things you can do by adding a "Send to" button to voicemails.

Just a heads up, this is only going to be supported in cases where the Phone app actually has integration with voicemail. In my case, it's working with Project Fi, and it's possible that's the only service this works with. Sorry, I'm not sure if it works with Google Voice or any other system. Note: Evidently, this also works on Verizon and T-Mobile. - Thanks, jonzey231 and Jonathan White.

To share a voicemail, just tap on a voicemail in the list to expand it, then scroll down to see "Send to" at the bottom of the list. Be aware, this feature is actually pretty buggy at the moment. There are at least two issues I discovered almost immediately. The first is that the file is shared without a suffix or any indication that it's meant to be opened as an audio file. For reference, it's an mpga (MPEG Layer 1/2 Audio) file. In most cases, it can be named with an .mp3 suffix and virtually all audio players should be able to open it without a problem.

The second issue is a bit more confusing. It turns out that it's possible for the audio from the voicemail to not have been downloaded. Attempting to share it will result in an empty file being passed to the receiving app. This issue can be fixed by tapping a button to play the voicemail, which begins by downloading the file. It's an understandable oversight, but it makes for a pretty bad bug. Both of these are a bit serious, so I assume they'll be fixed pretty quickly and an update should be rolling out soon enough.

Fix: Color of the "new contact" app shortcut icon

Do you have OCD? If so, hopefully this is the first time you're finding out about this little thing, because it seems to have been driving a few people crazy. Thanks to an eagle-eyed spot by Rodrigo Souza, we can see that this update tweaked the color of the new contact app shortcut icon to match the background of the Phone icon. It's not a huge thing... Unless it has been driving you nuts.

Teardown

Disclaimer: Teardowns are based on evidence found inside of apks (Android's application package) and are necessarily speculative and usually based on incomplete information. It's possible that the guesses made here are totally and completely wrong. Even when predictions are correct, there is always a chance that plans could change or may be canceled entirely. Much like rumors, nothing is certain until it's officially announced and released.

The features discussed below are probably not live yet, or may only be live for a small percentage of users. Unless stated otherwise, don't expect to see these features if you install the apk.

Share and Call, or RCS meets voice calling

Most of the conversation surrounding Rich Communication Services (RCS) has generally been centered around replacing SMS and MMS. Some carriers have gone further and implemented RCS to enable their own proprietary video calling systems, but that's just the beginning of what RCS can be used to accomplish.

It looks like Google may implement a new feature that uses RCS to simultaneously send an image and initiate a call to another person. The natural assumption would be that the image becomes the cover image for the voice call, giving some context about the call so the recipient knows the reason. It sounds reminiscent to the preview videos shown with Duo, but with just an image.

The icon likely to be used with this feature, dubbed "Share and call," shows a phone with a paper clip next to it. From the little bit that's available, it looks like users will be prompted to pick an image from their gallery, or possibly take a picture on the spot. Some strings also hint at the likelihood that the camera can be used to take a picture and use it immediately for Share and Call.

This is the first time RCS-related code has turned up in the Phone app, but with a wide variety of potential features, it's likely quite a few more will be added in due time.

Download

The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing app. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push this download to your devices, which can take days, download and install it just like any other APK.

Comments

Atoqir

This only works on Nexus/Pixel right due to forced lockdown?

JacobTheDev

Isn't that basically how Google's phone app has always been? I know at one point they messed up and released an "unprotected" version that can still be found on APK mirror, but as far as I'm aware, the Phone app has never been openly free to install on any device.

Voicemail integration does work with Google Voice, although I find it acts a bit weird sometimes. Mainly that sometimes it marks a voicemail from a week ago as new. I think it's failed to notify me about a voicemail before too. Of course, I already get notified via the Voice app, text message transcriptions, and an e-mail anyway, so it's not like I'm missing anything.

DanSan

how did you the voicemails through google voice to show in the dialer? ever since the GV update i can't get them to show in dialer. have to go into the GV app

blahmoomoo

Now that you mention it, a voicemail from Feb 1 isn't in the dialer. Others prior to that are shown. So I dunno, it just magically worked until then.

When the new Google Voice update hit, it stopped allowing Google Voice voicemails to show in the Phone app. There used to be an option to use "Google Voice" for voicemail in the Phone settings but that is no longer there.

Your voicemail tab will remain with whatever voicemails you had before the update, but they will not refresh and you will not get new ones.

Yes... I know that... What I'm saying is that it seems likely this functionality is currently broken and will probably return in the future. If the intent was to remove it, the old voicemails would have probably been removed, too.

Maybe - but it seems the issues lies more on Google Voice's side, not on the Phone's side. People have mentioned this in Google+ posts with Product Managers and on the Product Forums, and Google literally skipped right over the question when they answered others. Makes me a bit worried that it's not coming back.

Actually, I'm going to add an even stronger point to my argument. The voicemail sharing feature I wrote about in this post was just added, and it makes absolutely zero sense to build it if the voicemail capabilities aren't going to be restored (and possibly improved). Nobody builds a feature that's dependant on another feature that already stopped working and won't be coming back.

Regarding the particulars of how product managers communicate with users, it's very common for people to dodge questions if answering them would result in divulging details or hints about unannounced products. It's possible they had to ignore those questions because something else is on the roadmap. Basically, a total lack of communication can either be a very good thing or a very bad thing.

Adam Margeson

From my understanding, the visual voicemail tab can be used with certain carrier voicemail systems other than Google Voice. That said, I'm sure that the GV team rushed something out the door to say, "Hey everybody! We're still here! We haven't given up!" and a lot of the functionality will likely come back. :crosses my fingers:

The voicemail tab does NOT work with Google Voice once you update to the new Google Voice app. The tab will remain and any voicemails you have in there will stay in there, but it will not update with new voicemails.

bkosh84

Ditto. Ever since the new Google Voice app was released I have not been able to use Voicemail in the Phone app.

No, but it fixed the Nexus 6P bug. You know the one, right? It was a bug I'm not going to define, but it happened on the Nexus 6P.
;p

filipebatista

I meant the bug related to the echo when using the loudspeaker

Dakoziol

Hopefully. I've been getting the same bug.

Bombaglad

voicemail? i haven't used it even once in my life... if they don't pick up, i text

😆😄

Heard of voicemail transcription? Save yourself a few steps.

Bombaglad

i'm pretty sure no such thing works in my language (slovak) :)

😆😄

I'm so sorry! 😢

Bombaglad

don't be, there's only some 5M of us, so no point in devoping that... at least i get to practice my english skills by arguing with strangers on the internet 😂😂

John Doe

You need some work on your grammar :P

Rob

No he doesn't? Haha!

John

Then you didn't have a phone in the 200x's when voicemail was the main form of communication with moms. "Hey, call me back. Okay. Bye." "[Silence] Hello? Hello? [hang up]" "Did you call? I turned my phone off. Call me back."

Bombaglad

i did, but nobody around me ever used it and sms weren't that expensive, soo :D

That was great! In the early 2000's. This is seventeen years later, where just about everyone has a cell phone instead of a house phone and we tend to recall the people who don't as they're usually grandparents who won't afford to change.

That being said, I'm of the same logic as OP. If I hear the voicemail greeting I just hang up and let caller ID do it's job, or I send a text and wait for a reply.

Michael Shorey

was hoping this would update my V10

JacobTheDev

I'm so excited for RCS to take off... It has real potential to be a great messaging platform that can actually supplant traditional SMS, which is still huge here in the US. I can't convince all of my friends using the same chat app, but if eventually all of their carriers support RCS, I won't have to. Very cool stuff.

JG

Too bad RCS implementation has been proprietary with basically each carrier implemention their own system that doesn't work outside of their own network.

Maybe, at least, making sure everyone is on Verizon would be easier than making sure everyone uses Allo*.

*Which apparently is so unpopular that even Google's own keyboard's autocorrect apparently assumes I meant to say Allow instead of Allo.

Shellyjgehrke

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Daniel Harvard

If apps are system installed how are they updated to the latest version offered by Google?
App updates are usually managed by Google Play but system apps do not appear in "Installed Apps" on Google Play so how do we get these apps updated to the very latest?

There's a much more technical and convoluted explanation; but the short version is that the updates are installed to the same place as regular downloaded apps, and the system knows to use the updates instead of the system apps, yet it still extends the same level of permissions that the system apps are supposed to have.

tl;dr - It just works...

David Hyman

I really wish ATT supported visual voicemail. Their VM app sucks and calling into a number to get your VMs is so old school. PLEASE SUPPORT IT ATT!

Red5

My visual Voicemail works great on my Samsung S6 on ATT.

David Hyman

Maybe it was updated, I haven't used it in a while. I'll give it another shot!

Juan S. Camargo Visbal

I find 'Share and call' and 'Share voicemail' as two examples of just because you can, don't really see them being used...

Maybe - but the Share and Call feature is part of the RCS Universal Profile spec so expect to see it appear in more places from more OEMs.

TheDrunkenClam

For the love of God, how do I get my wife's Nexus 6 to display the voicemails in the dialer (we are on Verizon). I know it's possible because she had it working before. Then we traded phones for about a month (I wanted to use my Nexus 6 again for nostalgia, and so I let her use my 6P). Then when we switched back, it is no longer there. It plays on that visual voicemail app, but they don't populate in the phone app.

xnifex

Dialer > settings > calls > voicemail

Itchy_Robot

Any word if the 'people' tab (the one with two heads) will obey to only showing the contacts on my phone? I have my work Outlook email coming through Gmail and it shows all the email addresses of clients. Under the 'Contact' app there is a setting called "Contacts to display" where you can create a custom setting to only show Google contacts. This works great for the Contacts app, but this does not carry over to the Phone app>people tab.

Portzblitz

I second this question. Why Android makes the contacts app efficient in showing me just the contacts i desire, yet insists on putting an unmodifiable 2000-3000 in my face in the actual communication (phone) application has always baffled and annoyed me.

jonzey231

Ughhh same. I have no need for Joe Schmo that I emailed one time 8 months ago to pop up in my phone contacts lol.